Category: E3 2012

The timing worked out pretty well this year with Episode 50 being both the Drunk Cast and our E3 predictions show and Episode 51 as the book-end for both of those events. Sadly, a lot of our guesses about E3 2012 were off the mark, but that’s all right, I’m sure our next-gen console predictions will come true some day.

We start this cast of with a nice game of Grades, bringing back Anthony’s famous “GAME TIME” clip for the first time in a few shows. We talk about the Big Three conferences and then dip into the various games that we saw and what intrigued us. We fit in a little industry news at the end too, just as a special treat.

I’m sure that you know the drill by now, but listen, rate and enjoy the podcast. Don’t be dicks to each other and we’ll see you soon.

The next generation is a notion we’ve been chasing for a while now, but after an absences from this year’s E3, it’s starting to look like it’s further off than previously thought. Even though we won’t be getting out hands on next gen consoles for at least another year, developers are certainly tooling around with the development kits of tomorrow. One of the biggest names in dev tools is Epic Game’s Unreal Engine, and GT.TV had a beefy look at its fourth iteration.

The Unreal Engine is really versatile and many games we play are powered by it so I’m really looking forward to seeing what it will back when the next generation hits. What do you guys think about the Unreal Engine 4?

I am the resident Final Fantasy fanboy here at the GamerSushi offices and while I enjoy the newer, fancier entries in the series, I always look back more fondly on the games from the good old days, when 2D was the standard and people were okay with random battles. Those days seemed like they had gone the way of the dodo, never to return.

But Square Enix, in a rare attempt to please its fans rather than disappoint them in a way that seems to induce terrible fan-fic, has announced Final Fantasy Dimensions, for the iOS and Android. Bringing us back to SNES days, with Active Time Battle and yes, even random battles. Take a look at this small snippet of gameplay:

Depending on who you ask, Nintendo’s presentation of the Wii U at E3 on Tuesday went over like a blue shell in Mario Kart: either it made your day or it made you wish for a quick death. Regardless of that, one of the big titles missing from the presentation was The Legend of Zelda. While Zelda doesn’t sell as well as the 2D Mario games do, it is (or was) a franchise that gets the hardcore gamers, who Nintendo claims to be courting, frothing at their collective mouths.

Thankfully, Entertainment Weekly had the clout to get an answer out of the legendary game creator himself, Shigeru Miyamoto. Unfortunately, the news isn’t all good. Miyamoto told EW that the next Zelda is currently in the R & D stage, but added:

But really what we continue to ask ourselves as we have over the years is, “What is the most important element of Zelda if we were to try to make a Zelda game that a lot of people can play?” So we have a number of different experiments going on, and [when] we decide that we’ve found the right one of those to really help bring Zelda to a very big audience, then we’ll be happy to announce it.

Sigh. I really don’t know what’s going on over there at Nintendo. The last Zelda, Skyward Sword, still sits on my shelf, its once gleaming golden cover now slowly being buried by a layer of dust. The reason? Too much hand-holding, the kind that caters to someone who has never touched a video game before in their lives. So what’s Nintendo’s answer to that? Try to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, which actually goes against the very thing they are claiming to try to do with the Wii U.

These mixed messages, such as the fact that the Wii was made to simplify controls, but now the Wii U has all them there buttons that complicated it again (And don’t forget the Wii U Pro, which does away with that revolutionary screen altogether) are really starting to make me think that Nintendo is flailing about. The Zelda that everyone always holds up as the standard is Ocarina of Time, which sold over 7 million copies worldwide. I don’t have other figures on hand, but I would be shocked if that wasn’t the best-selling Zelda of all time.

So what is Nintendo thinking? Do you think Zelda should broaden its appeal to attract more fans? Or should it evolve, but stick to the core mechanics that get the pulses of gamers pounding, like Ocarina of Time did? Or should Zelda just throw in the towel?

If there’s any game that’s more unnecessary than a Gears of War prequel, I’d like to see it (already seen God of War: Ascension) but it sounds like Epic subsidiary studio People Can Fly are doing their best to make the next trip back to the Gears-verse worth your time.

As Gears of War: Judgement is being told from the perspective of Baird and Cole defending themselves at a treason hearing, certain elements of the game will change each time you play it because, like any memory, things are going to be forgotten, replaced, or just plain made up. For example, the first time you play through a level, you might have access to sniper rifles, but the next time you play, Baird might say something like “we didn’t have access to snipers rifles” and poof: where you were once popping fools with snipers, you now have to get down and dirty with them.

As you play the missions you’ll eventually get to go through “declassified” versions of the levels, which is the actual series of events. Gears of War: Judgement also comes with a smart-spawn system similar to Left 4 Dead’s director: if you’re doing well the game will throw more enemies in different locations and you, and if you’re struggling to progress, things will get a bit easier.

Mixing things up like is what helps make a prequel a bit more palatable. I’m interested to see how this system will preform when the game drops, but for now it sounds like an interesting concept. What do you guys think? Is Gears of War: Judgement sounding a bit better to you now? What do you think of the declassification system?

After playing Bungie-crafted Halo games for over ten years, how will 343 Industries fare when they take a stab at the mode the revolutionized multiplayer on consoles? If the new War Games trailer out of E3 is any indication, Halo 4’s multiplayer will be fast, brutal and more than a little bit flashy. Bungie’s Halo was always a more considered shooter, the slower pace leading to careful skirmishes rather than balls-to-the-wall gunfights. It worked well with the old games, but can 343 kick Halo into overdrive?

Overall the multiplayer of Halo 4 seems very similar to Halo: Reach: there are assassinations and armor abilities, but the new Spartans IVs are moving a lot faster than their Spartan III counterparts. I’m liking the look of Halo 4 a lot, but the sound design needs a little tuning. The melee attacks sound to squishy for a bunch of dudes in one ton suits of armor. What do you guys think? Does this trailer carry on the Halo legacy, or is Halo 4 turning into its own game?

There are no secrets in the video game industry, which is why we knew about Dead Space 3’s co-op mode almost a week before its official debut at the E3 press conference. Even though we knew it was coming, we didn’t know what it would look like, so the six-minute on stage demo was enough to get a good idea. Here’s that demo so you can watch for yourself:

So what do you guys think? Is it a little too action packed for your taste? How will Visceral Games maintain the horror with two people running and gunning? How does new character John Carver compare to Isaac Clarke? Speak up!

Nintendo’s press conference this year was so big they had to split it into 3. Not only did they have their Wii U conference the other night, but they also had a 3DS conference as well. But today is the big day, when they unleashed all of the games they’re working on to get the Nintendo fans excited. So the big question, as always, is: did they deliver? Does Nintendo’s immediate future look promising for gamers? Did Nintendo save the best for last?

So dang, guys. Even if the big dogs have shown up to E3 without a single announcement for next gen plans (phew), that hasn’t stopped developers from hitting us with games that could be running on next generation hardware. See yesterday’s Watch Dogs, if you’re uncertain. Or just take a gander at Star Wars 1313.

In the clip, we get a sneak peek at some in-engine cinematics, featuring a couple of bounty hunters in what’s being billed as a grittier, more mature Star Wars universe. Sure, those are some awful big buzzwords, but combine them with Star Wars and you’ve got a pretty nice hook. In addition, we also see shots of gameplay. The best way to describe this game so far looks to be Uncharted in spcae, and I mean that in a good way. And yeah, it’s kind of gorgeous, to boot.

What are your thoughts on Star Wars 1313? Do you think this is running on next gen tech? Go!

Just like last year’s E3 press conference, Microsoft had a bit of a lackluster showing with nothing but sequels, media boasting and Kinect showings. Did Sony do a better job in 2012 than 2011 of capitalizing where the competition falter?

In a day of big news all across E3, the biggest news perhaps came at the end of Ubisoft’s wacky, boob-showing, animal killing, eSports-toting conference. With a move that surprised everyone, Ubisoft unleashed an unannounced new IP titled Watch Dogs, a cyber-punk inspired open world game that looks like Assassin’s Creed meets Shadowrun meets Grand Theft Auto IV.

It really is hard to put into words what makes this (gameplay) demo so impressive, so I think you should just watch it for yourselves. Ubisoft gave no indication of a release timeframe or even a system, but the visuals make it out to be something that might even be next generation.

The most impressive part was the way everything was inter-connected, and all the tools the player has at his disposal. It’s hard to figure out if the end was a hint for multiplayer, but the possibility sure is exciting.

It’s E3 time! Microsoft had the task of kicking things off for us this year so we start with the Big M. Below are my instant reactions as I watched the press conference unfold:

Halo 4

Halo 4 will kick off the show. After ending the show with it last year, MS obviously doesn’t want to make us wait any longer than necessary. But what will end the show? My money’s on a sequel to Blinx.

Live action trailer for Halo 4. Pretty bad-ass. Pretty cheesy. A ship designed to discover new worlds. Looks like something went wrong. Oh, they are crashing on the Chief’s planet. Interesting.

Gameplay! Looks like Halo. The planet is a vibrant green, lots of foliage. Looks cool. Grunts. Covenant. An Elite just disintergrated. Weird. New enemies are attacking. Some new robot thing that reminds me of General Grievous popped out. Cortana says it is Forerunner design.

Some cool ass new weapon is tearing these things up. Daddy like.

Infrared visor! Nice! Metroid Prime meets Halo.

Clips of lots of stuff, like Warthogs, Cortana going batshit and a tagline: An Ancient Evil Awakens.

E3 week is here everyone, and Nintendo has started the salvo of gaming news and updates with a pre-E3 web conference. This pre-show conference is about the Wii U hardware, and not to be confused with their big conference on Tuesday, which will focus on the games and Nintendo’s upcoming strategy for the next year.

It’s interesting that after the confusion of last year, Nintendo chose to devote 30 minutes solely to the Wii U, detailing what it is, what they see for the system and what makes it unique. You can watch the entire pre-show conference below.

For those with short attention spans, here’s the Cliff Notes version:

Wii U Game Pad has been updated to include analog sticks instead of circle pads, which looks much more comfortable for gaming.

Game Pad includes an NFC reader for cards/figures and also can be used as a TV remote

We’ve been teasing it for weeks and now we’re finally here: the big Episode 50 celebration, the Drunk Cast! I’ll skip my usual jokes about the absence of friend of the show Nick Comardo and just let you enjoy the craziness.

This is also our E3 2012 predictions show, so we manage to squeeze in some forecasting about what the big three and the publishers will do next week. We also talk 38 Studios, Infinity Ward’s redonkulous salaries and Bungie’s contract with Activision. In addition to that we have a couple bro-downs and Eddy not so humble-brags about his accomplishments over the last year.

By this point you’ve probably stopped reading and are listening to the cast, but don’t forget to rate it on iTunes when you’re done. We’ll see you all post E3 for The Hangover Cast 2.

Man, as if next week isn’t already going to be crazy enough, it seems like developers are trying to get ahead of the game by putting out some new trailers on GameTrailers TV’s annual pre-E3 bash. Madness, I say!

In addition to LucasArts announcing Star Wars 1313, a mature third-person shooter that takes place on Coruscant, Konami and Mercury Steam have revealed the first Lords of Shadow 2 trailer. It doesn’t show any kind of gameplay, but it gives a glimpse into the direction of the next game, with Gabriel Belmont as the villain of sorts… and even hints at a new Belmont clan arrival.

But the crown jewel of last night’s trailers would have to be the Dishonored gameplay trailer. It looks like Bioshock and Half-Life 2’s bastard child, if that’s at all possible. View some sweet assassin kills and the crazy steampunk atmosphere below. Lords of Shadow 2 trailer after the jump.

It’s possible. Game Informer’s got the scoop on the newest no-neck cover-based execution-loving third-person shooter from Epic Games, and while we don’t know much about it, we do know that it’s a brand new Gears of War game. It’s the particulars that get a little bit iffy.

So far, the big rumor that’s swirling around the tubes is that the fourth Gears of War game is a prequel. And not only that, but the first game in a prequel trilogy, developed by People Can Fly, the team that created Bulletstorm. The cover image from Game Informer’s July issue would seem to indicate that this new game could possibly show how Marcus Fenix ended up in the prison cell when the first game started.

As much as I’ve adored the Gears of War franchise, count me among the people in the world that is just not that excited by the term “prequel” any longer. The problem with most prequels is that we’ve seen the end of the story already, so they just don’t hold the narrative steam of new content. And even though Epic and Co. insist that they can go a million different directions with the story, I’d rather see a new setting/universe, but with the same mechanics that make Gears of War unique. Why keep spinning out endless threads for a story that we’ve already explored to death? I guess we’ll find out more next week at E3.

So what do you guys think of the idea of a new Gears of War game? Do you dislike the idea of it being a prequel? Are prequels old news now? Go!

Update: Game Informer has updated the link, showing that the cover image is actually of both Cole and Baird in chains, not Marcus Fenix. So it looks like this will still be a prequel, but starring the two fan favorites. Does this change your feelings?

Is it really already time for another E3? No matter how hard I try to avoid it, the calendar confirms that another round of the Electronic Entertainment Expo is upon us, this time hitting us with all of its buzz June 5-7. For our hobby, this is the equivalent of a holy week, one of those high festivals that requires our time, celebration and perhaps even woe. Although that last one is probably more apt if you’re waiting on a Half-Life 3 announcement.

So, with E3 right around the corner, we thought we would ask you guys what your E3 predictions are. Honestly, I have no idea what to expect from this year. Now that Nintendo’s unabashedly broken the next generation ice with the showing of Wii U, this is a year where people are anticipating similar reveals from both Sony and Microsoft. Despite the numerous claims to the contrary, I tend to fall in that camp as well. But then you never truly know.

In terms of specific announcements from other notable developers, I expect a Dragon Age 3 tease of some sort from Bioware, since their other big franchise has laid down to rest for the moment. I also expect something new out of Valve, since they have no releases lined up after CS: GO and Dota 2 this year. I’m also banking on another entry to the Metal Gear Solid series.

So what about you guys? What do you expect or hope to see from E3 this year? Tell us your E3 predictions. Go!